This course is a path we can choose to walk together now, whatever stage we are at in our lives. We can never know how or when we will die, but many who work with the dying share the view that it can potentially be a time of healing and spiritual transformation. With this possibility in mind, we will practice together, in times of silence and sharing, continuing the journey towards our death which we started at birth. If we choose to enter the threshold of our own death now, our heart practices and enquiry in this territory may enable us to accompany others with ‘emptier’ hearts, so that more love shines through. And perhaps we ourselves can transition with less fear when it is our own time to die.

 A fundamental intention underlying the course is to enable us to familiarise ourselves with our intrinsically open and loving awareness, which if we can drop into more often, can support us living our lives more fully with a deeper sense of joy and peace. There is so much that is unknown to us about our own death, but we can cultivate the capacity to enter and rest in an open state of presence that co-arises with our moment-to-moment everyday experience. And bringing kindness to our current feelings, thoughts and unspoken half-conscious intuitions concerning our own death can enable us to feel and ‘know’ the reality of our own death more intimately. At a subtle level such knowing helps shape our own death awareness, with the possibility of it becoming an inner ‘staff’ to support us as we go forward in our lives.

During the course we will have the opportunity to tend to ourselves and each other with compassion and to listen to what arises and speaks to us on our shared journey. Through this it is hoped that we may more easily discern what we need to go forward with less resistance and a greater sense of freedom at the heart of our experience. A particular focus will be: what does ‘surrendering in love’ mean to me, and how can I practice this so that when my death comes, I have this experience to draw on?

Course format

We shall use meditation, creativity, small and whole group experiential work, reflection themes and ritual to explore our feelings, experiences and understandings of death.

The course is essentially contemplative. Each day will begin and end with meditation, and there will be ‘blessed silence’ from 8.00pm to 8.00am.

 A central practice will be to co-create a holding field of heart to sustain us through our individual and shared journeying.

There will be an opportunity during the course to create a ‘lifelong garment’ to wrap around us whenever we go through threshold moments in our lives, and which we could choose to be clothed in after our death.

We have the privilege and gift to be located at Karuna Institute, immersed in the changing seasons and wild beauty of Dartmoor.

Module One: Being on Thresholds of the Unknown

Let this darkness be a bell tower

And you the bell… (Rilke: Sonnets to Orpheus)

In Module One, we will have the opportunity to enter the thresholds of our own fragility and mortality, and to call in the potency of love to surround and bless us as we commit to this journey together. We will begin simply through establishing our circle, listening to one another and orienting to our inherent natural state of loving presence, which we could say is our birth and deathright.

 Silence will be a key thread running through our days together, and we shall spend time tending to ourselves with heart as we listen to what arises and speaks to us in the moment. Working with the senses, symbolism and wordcraft we will start exploring our experience of the implicate realm together, where life and death can sometimes seem less separate, less ‘either-or’; and where love (bodhicitta) can sometimes surprisingly arise as a felt experience without cause.

Module Two: Dreaming my Dying

In this uncontainable night,

Be the mystery at the crossroads of your senses,

The meaning discovered there… (Rilke: Sonnets to Orpheus)

In Module Two we will explore the dying process, especially drawing on Tibetan Buddhist understandings of the dissolution of the senses and of a ground state of being which can be experienced as non-dual. Using guided visualization and creative activities we will find our own language for these elemental processes and practice a death meditation together. Creative experiential enquiry involving the natural elements will support us, and ritual will be a vehicle for honouring and grounding our exploration of this territory.

Module Three: Moments of Recognition in Life and Death

And if the world has ceased to hear you,

Say to the silent Earth: I flow.

To the rushing water, speak: I am.... (Rilke: Sonnets to Orpheus)

Module Three will provide opportunities for sharing our collective wisdom gathered in our lives so far and on this path, concerning our relationship with our own death. We will look at opportunities we have now in our lives to ‘surrender in love’ to the natural processes of living and dying ‘the little deaths’ we experience throughout our lives.  There will be a focus on integration on different levels, including reflecting on what we can draw on to nourish and resource ourselves to bring our hearts even more fully into our work, our world. The deep enquiry we are engaged in here concerning our own death can continue for the rest of our lives if we wish and have what we need to support us.

Who is eligible?

This course is designed both for those who are involved professionally or personally in caring for those at the end of life, and for those who feel drawn to this personal work now, for whatever reason. While many of us are familiar with co-creating circles of compassionate care around others, we are often not so accustomed to wrapping around our own personal enquiries such deep-hearted intentionality and care.

Participants are expected to be familiar with sitting in shared silence and working in groups, and to have a meditation/spiritual practice.

It is a requirement that participants commit to all three modules.

Please note: it is recommended that if you have experienced a recent death or loss (within two years), you consider delaying your start to this course; and if you have any queries about this please contact Anne: sarana@posteo.com

Anne Overzee

Anne Overzee is an End-of-Life Doula (www.dyingwithgrace.co.uk), and clinical supervisor in her capacity as a Core Process psychotherapist.  She has worked with individuals and groups for many years, including as a staff member of Karuna Institute. For the last twenty years, she has run courses and retreats in Italy. Her approach, while rooted in Vajrayana practice, is interspiritual and inclusive (www.saranaheart.com).

Having studied Theology and Religious Studies, initially at Cambridge University, she spent time lecturing in Higher Education. Her doctorate was published as The Body Divine: Cambridge University Press, 1986.